Green Tea Matcha Cookies

byAhu ShahrabanionMarch 30, 2016

Here comes April! A long stretch of 5-day work weeks that seems unending. If it weren’t for the birds chirping and flowers blossoming it would be a looooong month. So how do we power through the month? Carbs of course. And I’m not just talking about those that come in the form of post-Easter-candy-sales (although those are also awesome). I’m talking freshly baked, soft and chewy, delicately flavored Matcha Cookies. Yep – it’s a tea cookie – with tea INSIDE of it. It’s a cookie inception! 🙂

I debated whether to call these Matcha Cookies or Green Tea Cookies – since matcha is just the powder version of a kind of green tea. But if a rose is a rose by any other name, then so are these cookies. What I love about them is that they’re not too sweet and the matcha flavor is so unique, making this a very delicate and special cookie. Not to mention the awesome color! Creaming the butter and adding the baking powder makes all the difference and produces a fluffy, soft, chewy cookie which I love. You can bake them longer for a crispier cookie but I think a pillowy cookie just goes so well with a steaming cup of tea.

So what are you waiting for? I’d highly recommend you give this unique cookie a try – make the batter tonight and you’ll have cookies tomorrow! Plus, you need something to eat for dessert after a delicious dinner of 30-Minute Vegetarian Soba Noodle Soup. 🙂

Cream together the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl - it should be creamy colored and airy. A hand blender or stand mixer works well for this. This helps the cookie become fluffy and chewy.

Gently incorporate the eggs to the butter mixture one at a time.

In a separate bowl, sift together all the dry ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet by adding a little at a time and folding or gently mixing the batter together. Keep going until you've incorporated all the remaining flour mixture. The dough should be a beautiful green color.

Chill the dough for at least an hour - up to overnight. The longer the better!

Preheat your oven to 325 F.

Roll the dough into balls the size of ping pong balls and place them on a non-stick cookie sheet.

Bake them for 12-15 minutes until the bottoms just start to become golden brown and the cookie no longer looks wet in the middle. Note: you can always bake them at 350 F for a less moist, fluffy cookie. It will bake faster by about 2-4 minutes 350 F so watch them closely.

I tried them and they are amazing! The difficult question is whether to pair them with green tea (which seems to be the natural choice) or a strong cup of black. Either way has its merits which makes the choice even harder!

Good question Andrea! I use a tool where I input all the ingredients, and number of servings and it spits out the nutrition info per serving. Pretty handy! There are a number on the web, MyFitnessPal’s is my favorite.

Ahu those cookies are gorgeous and I love the matcha in them, not only is the color amazing but the flavor has to be out of this world. Would love several with a cup of tea. I didn’t know there was a difference in Matcha powder, will have to find that.

I’m making them now, and they just spread in the oven. Instead of rising, it’s very flat. Could you let me know what the consistency of the batter was like for you? & also, are we supposed to be able to roll the dough into balls with our hands? My batter was more of a liquid consistency so I just used an ice-cream scooper to place it on my tray.

Lisa – thanks for dropping a note! Definitely sounds like something was awry with the batter. Two questions – were the ingredient proportions correct (I’ve forgotten ingredients before!) and did you chill before hand? Chilling definitely firms up the batter a good bit, but it shouldn’t be liquidy to start with, more like a semi-smooth batter. I hope this helps!